SANTA CRUZ — Alarm spread quickly in the agricultural industry after the State Department said it would suspend a number of visa services in Mexico in response to the coronavirus — including for seasonal guest-workers.

The State Department announced it would suspend processing for nonimmigrant visas in Mexico as of Wednesday. Included in that category are H-2A visas issued to more than 250,000 temporary agricultural workers who travel to the U.S. each year to tend, harvest and pack crops. The vast majority of those workers come from Mexico.

The visas will continue to be processed on “a very limited basis for emergency travel only,” according to an announcement from the U.S. Embassies and Consulate in Mexico that cited the health and safety of its staff.

Workers reapplying for the visas from last year may be eligible to have interview requirements waived, and could still see their applications processed, according to a State Department spokesperson.

But with harvest season soon to begin for berries and other crops, the announcement was met with widespread alarm throughout the agricultural industry.

“The failure to take necessary action to protect our food supply will result in bare shelves in grocery store produce aisles, not from panic buying, but as the result of the federal government directly causing a shortage of critical labor,” the Agriculture Workforce Coalition wrote to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday. “We urge you and the President to not let that happen.”

The coalition of industry groups — which includes the American Farm Bureau Federation — is calling on the state department to recognize H-2A visas as “essential” for the stability of the U.S. food supply and to ensure the workers’ applications are treated as emergency visa services.

On Thursday, a bipartisan group of 42 lawmakers echoed the industry’s call, warning of “devastating impact” to the U.S. economy if guest workers are barred from entering the country.

“We are deeply concerned that the suspension of visa processing, including H-2A visas for temporary or seasonal agricultural workers, will have a disastrous effect on U.S. agriculture, further endangering our nation’s food supply in this time of national crisis,” the lawmakers wrote.

Led by Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Carmel Valley, the group of lawmakers urged Pompeo to clarify the policy and ensure visa applications continue to be processed — particularly for those who have applied to the program in recent years.

“We urge the Department of State to act quickly and decisively to ensure that the U.S. agricultural sector can continue to provide a safe and robust domestic food supply during this national emergency by providing clarifying guidance regarding visa processing for H-2A workers,” the lawmakers wrote.

A response from Pompeo was requested no later than March 26.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is also working to try to get out ahead of the potential workforce shortage, it announced Thursday.

Partnering with the U.S. Department of Labor, the USDA is seeking out workers already covered under temporary visas who could potentially transfer to new employers in the agricultural industry once their current contracts expire.

So far, about 20,000 temporary guest workers have been identified whose contracts are expiring in weeks ahead, and who may be able to transfer to new employers, according to the USDA.

“Ensuring minimal disruption for our agricultural workforce during these uncertain times is a top priority for this administration,” USDA Secretary Perdue said Thursday in a prepared release. “President Trump knows that these workers are critical to maintaining our food supply and our farmers and ranchers are counting on their ability to work. We will continue to work to make sure our supply chain is impacted as minimally as possible.”

Introduced in 1986, the H-2A program requires employers to first attempt to hire the workers locally before applying for the visas.

As the agricultural industry grapples with workforce shortages, the program has more than tripled in size over past decade to account for about 258,000 seasonal jobs nationwide in 2019.

As of 2017, Santa Cruz and Monterey counties employed about 4,300 workers with H-2A visas, according to a 2018 report from the California Institute for Rural Studies.